Easy Tips for Chatting with your Customers

Each channel has its own particular correspondence style. You will and should utilize distinctive words when conversing with a customer via telephone than when sending an email. While most are comfortable and feel good with these channels, we’ve seen that with regards to live talk individuals are less secure about the style to utilize.

Live talk is an agreeable channel by nature, and some locate this difficult to join with the expert picture they expect to convey. The outcome we regularly observe are protracted and formal messages that neglect to use the qualities of this talk: speed, simplicity, and familiarity. So how about we give a few hints on the accepted procedures in live talking with site guests:

1. Keep the chat conversational

The #1 base rule for live-chat. Your sentences in a chat should be as if you were talking to your client over the phone or in real life. That means you shouldn’t make them too long and complicated, as you might do in emails.

2. Split long stories up in parts

When a long explanation is necessary, some people tend to write everything in 1 long message, again as if they were writing an email. In a normal conversation you are able to cut somebody off, e.g. when he/she has misinterpreted your question and starts explaining something you already know about. While cutting someone off can be considered as rude, it is in fact a perfectly natural and harmless behaviour to save time and effort for both the listener as well as the talker.

3. Infer listening indicators

In a real life conversation the listening side is never really quiet. In fact the best listeners use confirmation signals to indicate that they are listening and following, the “I see…”s, “Aha…”s, and “OK…”s. It’s a good practice to incorporate these into your chat behaviour as well. It will confirm the other side that you’re on the same track.

4. Use Emoticons

These little cartoons carry more power inside them than many think. They are perfect replacements for the lack of body and voice language over the chat. They fit perfectly well in a professional environment as well, as long as they are used correctly, in moderation, and go hand in hand with correct language.

5. Adopt the style of the person you are talking to

It makes a big difference whether you are chatting to a 20-year old that’s been raised in the ways of chat or whether you are talking to a 70-year old whose only chat experience derives from the stalking of her grandchildren over Facebook. In real life you will know what tone to strike just by looking at the person you are talking to. In live chat it’s different. Best is to start the chat on a neutral note, and adjust your style to your chat partner from there on. When the person on the other side is an easy-going chatter with short sentences and plenty of emoticon use, do the same. If the other side is taking things a bit more formally, adopt a more reserved style yourself (without ignoring the above mentioned points).